FAQ

The rare daily word game sweeping the globe - same grid, one planet, every day. You get 10 guesses on a 5×5 board to build real words from any combination of letters. Rarity is the score, not volume: the common, obvious words pay the least, so resist the urge to grab them. Find the words everyone else misses and you climb the worldwide leaderboard, ranked against every player on Earth. Players in dozens of cities across five continents are hunting the same letters as you right now.

An Outlier is someone who sees what most people miss - the rare word in a sea of common ones. Every day, players around the world stare at the same 25 letters, and most see the same handful of safe finds. Outliers think differently. They spot the obscure verb, the forgotten root, the word nobody else types. Playing this game is how you prove you’re one of them - and find the others. Join Outlier’s fast-growing global community of sharp thinkers, word lovers, and daily challengers taking the internet by storm.

Yes - completely free. No ads, no paywalls, no premium tier. One game a day, same grid for everyone on Earth, scored on rarity. Make a free account to claim a handle, save your streak, and join the global community of Outliers competing every day. Players who want to can chip in to keep it running, and they get a badge for it, but nothing is behind a payment and nothing anyone pays changes the game.

You’re picking 10 words. Build real words of 4+ letters from the grid - letters don’t have to touch, but you can’t use a letter more often than it appears. Build rare words, not common ones: rarity is the whole score. Lock in when you’re done.

Yes. The small shuffle icon left of the Lock In button reshuffles the same 25 letters into a new order. Sometimes a word hides in plain sight until the letters sit differently, and this gives you a fresh look without changing the puzzle. You get five reshuffles per session. Nothing about the game itself changes: same letters, same valid words, same scores, same rarities. Adjacency doesn’t matter in OUTLIER, so moving letters around is purely a visual aid. When the board is shuffled, a small SHUFFLED . RESET pill appears above it - tap it to snap back to the original arrangement without spending one of your five. Reloading the page also goes back to the original.

Ten - but only successful finds count against the ten. Anything that doesn’t land a new word - too short, misspelled, already found, or not in today’s set - is a free retry. The budget is "10 words found," not "10 attempts."

Sure - just come back where you left off. Your finds are saved on this device, so you can pick up where you stopped any time before the new game drops at 16:00 UTC (12 PM Eastern). Once the new game drops, the grid resets and any unlocked progress is gone.

16:00 UTC (12 PM Eastern), every day. A fresh 5×5 grid drops worldwide at the same instant.

Every word on a board has a Rarity Score from 0 to 100, set for that board before the puzzle drops. Each find earns points based on its rarity - rarer words pay more. The max each find can earn depends on its tier: COMMON +50, UNCOMMON +75, RARE +85, EPIC +90, SUPER RARE +95, OUTLIER +100. Max score: 1,000 per game. The math is the same on every board, so scores compare cleanly across days.

Your score as a percentage of a perfect run. Every day is scored on the same 0-to-1000 scale (a perfect ten-rare game ceilings out at 1000), so dividing your score by 10 gives you the number on that line. It is the honest "how close to perfect was I today" readout: 75% is 75% of the theoretical max, whichever board you were on. It is the one axis you can compare against yourself day over day.

Rarity beats volume. One Rarity-90 word can outscore a long list of common ones. That’s the whole game.

Rarity is graded per board, not per word. The same word can rate differently depending on the board it appears on, because we refine the grading over time, so an older board (the kind replays use) may grade a word a touch differently than today’s board does. Whatever a board showed when you locked is what you earned - scores are final at the buzzer and never regraded.

Two paths to the top. Your total score climbs you through SCOUT → SHARP EYE → KEEN → EAGLE EYES as you cross 300, 500, and 750 points. A single rare-enough find can unlock OUTLIER, ELITE OUTLIER, or LEGEND on its own - those tiers are rarity-gated, not score-gated. Most games land between SHARP EYE and EAGLE EYES; the rarity tiers are where the real flexing happens.

Your rarest find is your tiebreaker. When two players tie on total score, the daily rank is broken by the rarity of their single best find, and then by who locked in earlier. No two players share a rank. So your rarest word does double duty: it adds to your score and it settles ties against everyone level with you. On a tight board where lots of players cluster at similar totals, one standout rare find can jump you past the whole cluster, so it is worth spending a late guess hunting a single exceptional word even if it barely moves your total. And when you can, lock in earlier: if you and a rival tie on both score and best find, the earlier lock takes the rank. It rarely decides a board, but in a close group it is a free edge for the player who does not dawdle.

Play OUTLIER on at least 3 days. We need a few scores before your standing means anything against the whole field, so your worldwide rank badge appears on your third locked-in day. Play one brilliant game and you’ll still have a profile - you just won’t carry a rank badge until then.

By consistency. Each day you finish somewhere in the field, and your standing is built from how high you place day after day, shown as a consistency rating, higher is better. Finishing near the top repeatedly is what lifts it. Your average score sits beside the rating as supporting info and breaks ties.

No. Playing more does not automatically move you up. A longer history doesn’t earn you a higher spot, it just gives your rating more confidence: if two players are genuinely close, the one with the longer proven record may edge ahead, because there’s more evidence they really play at that level. A player with only a handful of games can absolutely rank above players with far more games if their daily placements are strong enough.

You’re under the 3-game qualifier. Play tomorrow’s Outlier and your worldwide rank badge appears everywhere your handle shows up - profile header, leaderboards, challenge standings, country pages.

The day’s standout rare words. Find every one of them and you earn LEGEND.

At the end of the day. While the day is live you’ll see a LEADER badge on your day card - that means you’re currently #1, but the standing isn’t settled until 16:00 UTC (12 PM ET). Once the day rolls over, LEADER converts to WINNER and the win counts toward your Worldwide Wins tally.

That is Encore - a gentle anti-memorization rule on the daily board. The first two times you find a given rare word (EPIC or rarer) it pays full; from the third time on, re-finding that same word across grids pays a bit less, down to a floor. Common and uncommon words are never affected, and finds fade on a 60-day half-life so a word you haven’t used in months counts as fresh again. It keeps the game about discovery, not memorizing a list. Your score is set the moment you lock and never changes afterward.

Your standing on that day's leaderboard: beat 87% means you outscored 87% of the players who locked in that day. Unlike a raw point total (which depends on how many people played), it means the same thing every day. Crack the top 10% of the field and it upgrades to an exact badge - TOP 10% down to TOP 1%. On small fields or your first game we show your rank only, since a percentile isn't meaningful yet.

Four boards, each answering a different question. Today is the live daily ranking. This Season is the monthly race. Hall of Fame is the all-time greats, ranked by peak skill. Most Consistent rewards the players who beat the field day after day. Every leaderboard page shares the same tab bar so you can jump between them in one tap.

A Season is one calendar month. On the 1st, everything resets and everyone starts level. Your season score is the average of your best 12 days that month, so a couple of missed days won't sink you and a newcomer can still stack 12 great boards and win. Every month is a fresh shot at #1 for everyone.

Every finished season crowns a full podium: Champion (1st), Runner-Up (2nd), and Third (3rd). While a season is live the top reads Leader, Runner-Up and Third. Win a place and a crown or medal badge appears permanently on your profile, linking back to the season you earned it in.

Yes. Across the whole year the same math runs on your best 30 days to crown the Player of the Year, decided on December 31. Monthly medals are the sprint; Player of the Year is the marathon.

Hall of Fame ranks all-time peak skill: a blend of your best 10 and best 3 days ever, so it rewards how high you can reach. Most Consistent rewards the opposite virtue - finishing near the top of the field, steadily, over a long record. Both are real achievements; they're just different ones, so they get their own boards.

Play, claim a handle, and you appear automatically. A few games gets you a daily and seasonal rank; the all-time boards ask for a slightly longer record so a lucky day or two can't fake a career. Every board lists every eligible player, so you can scroll down and find yourself wherever you land.

Because most boards rank on more than raw average. The Hall of Fame rewards your best days (peak skill), Most Consistent rewards how reliably you beat the field, and Seasons use your best 12 days of the month. In a game with a ceiling of 1000, the sharpest players are defined by their peaks, not their middle-of-the-road days. The full reasoning is in the leaderboards guide.

On your profile page. It is your full OUTLIER record in one place: your rank, your best and average scores, your streak, your rarity mix, your signature finds, your Word DNA, your Outlier Live record, and trend charts for every metric over time. Use the Go to your profile link below to jump straight to your own profile, or open anyone's by clicking their handle anywhere their name appears.

They measure two different things. The title under your name is your skill level on a single game, earned by your score and your rarest find that day: SCOUT, SHARP EYE, KEEN, EAGLE EYES, then the rarity-gated OUTLIER, ELITE OUTLIER and LEGEND. Your worldwide rank (the Worldwide #N badge) is your standing against every player on Earth, built from how high you place day after day. One is how good a game was; the other is how you stack up over time.

Each chart plots one number for every day you have played, oldest to newest, so you can see your trajectory at a glance. Score is your daily total out of 1,000. Day rank is where you finished on that day's leaderboard (lower is better, so the line is flipped: higher on the chart means a better finish). Worldwide rank is your global standing on each day. Country rank is the same within your country. Tap or click any chart to expand it to your full history with a 10-day, 30-day or all-time filter.

All-time best is your single highest game score and the day you set it, in accent color on the left. Average is your mean score across every game you have locked in, with the game count beneath it. Best shows your ceiling; Average shows your true level, since one lucky board does not move it much. Watching your Average climb over weeks is the cleanest signal that you are actually getting better.

Three things. Days active is your current run of consecutive days played. Played percent is the share of days you have shown up since you started, with a flame at 100 percent for a perfect record. Longest is your best streak ever. Streaks are the habit metric: keeping the number alive is the single best way to keep improving, since rank is built on consistency, not one big game.

A breakdown of every word you have ever found, sorted into tiers from COMMON up to OUTLIER, with a bar and a percentage for each. It is your style on a card: a profile heavy on COMMON means you grab safe words, while a tail of RARE, EPIC and OUTLIER finds means you hunt the words others miss. Since rarity is the whole score, shifting your mix toward the rarer tiers is exactly how your scores rise.

Your signature stats. Rarest find is the single most obscure word you have ever landed, with its tier, rarity number and points. Only you found counts the words you discovered that no one else in the field did that day, the truest proof you think differently. Best board is the terrain type you score highest on, so you know your home turf. These are the lines worth screenshotting and sharing.

Word DNA is your player identity distilled from how you actually play. It names your style, then backs it with four numbers: Vocabulary is the count of unique words you have ever discovered, Rare or better is the share of your finds that beat the field, Longest find is the longest single word you have played, and Top 5 percent days counts the days you finished in the elite of the whole field. Together they describe what kind of Outlier you are.

If a player has played Outlier Live, the head-to-head party mode, their profile shows a win-loss record. It only appears once they have played at least one live game, and a player can hide it in settings. It sits separate from the daily stats because Live is a different game: real-time rounds against other people, not the once-a-day solo board.

Last active shows when a player last visited, within the past 24 hours, on other people's profiles (it is hidden on your own). A pulsing Live badge means they are playing a live game right this second. Both are there so the game feels alive and so you know when a rival is around to challenge.

Because it turns scattered daily games into one honest scoreboard you own. A single game is noisy: a great board or a rough one tells you little. The profile smooths that into trends, your Average over time, your rank trajectory, your rarity mix shifting toward the rare tiers, and shows whether you are genuinely improving or just having a good day. It also makes progress motivating: a visible streak you do not want to break, a personal best to chase, a rank to defend. Check it weekly, watch the lines move, and you will see the climb you cannot feel game to game.

Your profile is public by default so your handle, rank and stats show up on leaderboards and challenge standings, which is how the community and rivalries work. If you would rather not appear, you can switch your profile to private in settings, which removes you from public leaderboards and hides your stats from others. Your own data stays fully visible to you.

It’s a real word and you can spell it from the grid, but OUTLIER uses a curated word list - yours isn’t in the accepted set for this puzzle. No guess is used; pick a new word.

OUTLIER follows word-game dictionary rules - the same family Scrabble uses - not a general dictionary like Merriam-Webster. The biggest difference: no proper nouns or words derived from names, which are always capitalized (so MALTHUSIAN, DARWINIAN, and VICTORIAN don’t play even though a dictionary lists them). No guess is used on a rejected word, and the lowercase words that feel just as obscure are all in there - that’s the hunting ground.

The message tells you the actual reason. If the board doesn’t have a letter your word needs, it names it: “No G on today’s board.” If the board has that letter but not enough of them, it says so: “Only two E’s on today’s board.” If the word is real but isn’t one of this puzzle’s answers, you’ll see “Real word, just not in this puzzle’s set.” “Not in our dictionary.” appears only when the game’s own word list genuinely doesn’t have it, which is a statement about our list and not about English. When that happens and your guess is only one letter away from a word we do have, it adds “Check your spelling.” - a nudge, not the answer, and it says nothing about whether the corrected word is on today’s board. Every one of those is a free retry - no guess is consumed.

OUTLIER blocks slurs, hate terms, and explicit profanity from counting as finds - even when they’re in the dictionary. The game is built to be family-friendly, so a small denylist of those words is enforced. No guess is consumed; pick another word.

No. Unlike a word search, letters can sit anywhere on the grid. The only rule is you can’t reuse a letter more often than it appears.

OUTLIER hides actual word strings from every public surface - leaderboard, profile, replay, share pages - until the day ends. Even after you lock in. That way nobody, including the people who already played, can spoil today’s puzzle for someone who hasn’t played yet. The words appear automatically once the day rolls over at 16:00 UTC (12 PM ET).

No - you can play right away, and your progress is saved to this browser. Claiming a handle adds a public profile, a spot on the leaderboard, and lets you play from any device.

There’s no password. Enter your email and we send a one-tap sign-in link.

Yes - once you’ve claimed a handle and signed in. Without an account, your history lives on a single browser.

Yes. Go to Settings → Danger → Delete account. You’ll be asked to type DELETE MY ACCOUNT to confirm. Your profile and leaderboard entries are removed immediately, and your handle is retired - it isn’t released for anyone else to claim. Deletion is permanent: the next time you play you’ll start fresh as a new anonymous player, and signing back in with the same email or Google account starts a brand-new account rather than restoring the old one. Guests with at least one locked game get a Delete playing history option using the same flow.

A head-to-head on the exact same grid. You send a friend a challenge link, they play that day’s Outlier, and both scores sit side by side on a shared standings page. It’s OUTLIER with someone specific to beat.

After you lock in the day’s game, tap the “Challenge a friend” button on your result screen - or use the create button on the Challenges page. You get a link to send to anyone.

Open their link and play the day’s Outlier the normal way. When you lock in, your score drops onto the challenge standings automatically. There’s no separate game - your regular daily play is the challenge.

No. You play the day’s Outlier once, and that single score counts for every challenge you’ve been sent for that day.

Anyone with the link can take it. Challenges you create also appear on your public profile, so any player can pick one up and try to beat your score.

Yes. A challenge is tied to one day’s Outlier. Once that day closes, the challenge locks - scores are final and no one new can join.

The Challenges page lists every challenge you’ve started, every one sent to you, and every one you’ve joined. It’s in the menu too.

The same rare word game you love, now live and head to head. Play one on one or with a whole group: everyone gets the SAME special board at the same time, and you race through 10 rounds with a 60-second timer on each. Lock one word per round; when the buzzer sounds the rarest word takes it, up to 100 points a round and 1000 max per game. Most points wins the bragging rights. Live boards are separate from the daily Outlier and never repeat for you. Currently in beta.

Same rare-word engine, two different games. The Daily is one board shared by the whole world, dropping at noon ET: you play on your own time, take your 10 guesses, and your score ranks you against everyone on Earth. Outlier Live is your own game with your own people, happening right now: everyone in your room gets the same special board (never the daily one), and you race through 10 rounds with a 60-second timer, rarest word taking each round. Short version: the Daily is you against the world. Live is you against your people, in real time.

Share it - Outlier Live is at its best with a crowd. Start a game, then send the invite link to your group chat, your family thread, your coworkers: everyone who taps it lands in your lobby with just a name. The lobby has a live chat, so the early arrivals can talk while the room fills. You, the host, control the start: wait until enough players are in, then hit Start the game and everyone drops into round 1 together. Two players is a duel; five or more is a party.

Private (the default) means your game is invisible: only people with your invite link or game code can get in. Public means your game is listed in the live lobby for anyone to join - look for the PUBLIC chip with the little globe on lobby cards. You pick Public or Private when you start a game, and either way the gameplay is identical.

The lobby is the front door to public games. Open games are rooms still filling up: tap Join and you're seated, and the game starts itself shortly after a player is in - a short countdown runs (roughly 30 to 45 seconds), so there's time for hellos before round 1. No waiting on a host to press anything. Playing now shows games already mid-match: tap Watch to pull up a seat. There's almost always something to join or watch.

Yes - spectator mode. Tap Watch on any Playing now game in the lobby and you'll see every reveal land, round by round, plus the live standings. Spectators can't lock words or chat, so the game stays fair. When you're ready to play, the next open game is one tap away.

No. Hosting needs a free account so your games and standings have a home, but the people you invite join with just a name and the invite link or game code. They can claim a handle afterward to keep their results.

Rarest wins: common words score lower, and the rarer the word the more it's worth. One word on the clock: lock one word each round before the buzzer. Letters float free: they don't need to touch, but never use a letter more times than it appears. Always lock SOMETHING: any word beats an empty hand, because nothing scores 0. Played words burn: a word you or anyone else already used won't count again. Your first lock is final - no changing it once it's in.

In a two-player game you'll see a reconnecting notice, and if your rival stays gone you can keep playing or take the win by forfeit. Reconnecting is painless: reopening the invite link drops a player straight back into the round in progress. In bigger games the rounds simply keep rolling.

It's new and we're polishing it daily. Rules, pacing, and screens may evolve, and you may catch the occasional rough edge. If something feels off, use the feedback link - live reports shape what gets fixed next.

Groups are your own daily leaderboards. Everyone in a group plays the same daily puzzle, and the group ranks you against each other. Great for friends, family, or coworkers.

Open the Groups page and tap Create a group. Give it a name and crest, choose Public or Private, and you become the leader. You need a claimed username first.

A Public group can be found in search and shows its standings to anyone. The leader chooses whether people can ask to join. A Private group is invite-only and hidden, so you share its invite link to add people.

Three ways: open the group's invite link to join instantly, ask to join a public group (a leader approves it, or it auto-approves if the leader turned that on), or get added by a leader using your username.

Each day the group is ranked by score, and the weekly view shows averages over time. Tap any day to open its full results.

A leader can challenge another group to a head-to-head, ranked by average score per member. Both groups opt in, then the comparison shows on each group's page.

Yes. In Settings, under Groups, turn on the opt-out. After that, leaders can't add you, though you can still join with an invite link or by asking to join a public group.

No. Replaying a past Outlier never touches your score or rank. Play freely.

No. Locking your score ends the day’s Outlier - you’ll be asked to confirm first.

Your result page has a copyable score and a downloadable card; the Share page sends the game itself. The fastest move: a group chat where everyone posts their score.

Because you enjoy it, and that is a good enough reason on its own. OUTLIER is a few minutes of most people's day, and the players who chip in are what pays for it, for themselves and for everyone who never gives a penny. There is no perk attached and nothing to unlock: your score, your rank, your streak and your leaderboard place are exactly what they would have been. If the game is part of your day and you would like it to carry on being part of your day, that is the whole reason, and $10 counts.

On the support page. You pick an amount, from $10 upward, and whether it repeats. An amount that renews once a year makes you a PATRON. A single gift makes you a SUPPORTER. Either way you are a Keeper. Stripe takes the payment and emails you a receipt. The game is free either way; people chipping in is the reason it can stay free for everyone else.

Cadence, and nothing else. A PATRON pays an amount they choose once a year, renewing on the same date until they stop it. A SUPPORTER sends a single gift, which does not renew and needs no cancelling. Both start at $10 and both are pay-what-you-want, with the slider stopping at $10, $25, $50 and $100 or any exact amount you type. Both are Keepers, and Keeper is the word that covers everyone: PATRON and SUPPORTER only say how the money arrives. Both appear on the Keepers board with a pill saying which one they are, and both get the matching badge on their profile. Neither buys anything inside the game.

No, and it never will. There are no extra guesses, no hints, no help finding rare words, and no adjustment to your score, your rank, your streak or your place on any leaderboard. OUTLIER is scored on rarity, and rarity has to mean the same thing for every player or the whole game is pointless, so money is kept out of it completely. A patron and someone playing their first board are playing exactly the same game.

Everyone who chips in for OUTLIER. It is one word for all of it: $10 or $250, a single gift or an amount that renews every year, named on the board or not. It is not a tier and there is nothing above it, because it is not something you climb. It is simply what we call the people whose money keeps the game online. It carries no advantage in the game and never will.

Anyone who chips in during the first year of the support programme, which began in August 2026. It marks when you turned up and nothing else, so the smallest gift in that first year is as Founding as the largest, and it stays with you afterwards whether or not you ever give again. It runs to August 2027 and then it closes on its own. Like everything else here it changes nothing inside the game.

A public page listing everyone funding OUTLIER, ranked by the total they have given, each with a PATRON or SUPPORTER pill and the month they started. Founding Keepers are marked as such. You land on it by chipping in and leaving the listing box ticked at checkout. Untick that box and the gift still counts, you are still a Keeper and Founding still applies, it is just not listed and no badge appears anywhere.

That the player is a Keeper: somebody who helps pay for OUTLIER. PATRON is an annual amount that renews, SUPPORTER is a one-time gift. It is a thank you and nothing else: it carries no advantage, no extra features and no weight in any ranking. Players who asked not to be named do not carry one.

Stripe. You enter your card on Stripe's own checkout page, so it never reaches OUTLIER: what comes back here is the amount, whether it renews, and an email address to send the receipt to. Card numbers are never seen or stored on this site.

Yourself, if you were signed in when you paid: open the support page on that account and the manage button at the top opens Stripe's own billing page, where you can cancel the renewal, change the card or download past invoices. If you gave without signing in there is no account to link the payment to, so reply to any receipt email instead and the renewal is cancelled for you. Either way there is no minimum term and no cancellation fee. Cancelling stops the next payment and does not refund the year already paid, and whatever you have already given stays on the Keepers board, as does Founding if you have it. A one-time gift has nothing to cancel.

Keeping the game online, building it, and looking after the people playing it. OUTLIER takes no advertising and no outside investment and sells no player data, so what players give is the entire budget. The independence page shows the running total, split between annual patrons and one-time gifts.

OUTLIER was built by Michael Szerencsy, an entrepreneur based in New York. He designed the game around a single twist - score the rarest finds, not the most. Send feedback any time; it goes straight to him.